A report on the TTeam Workshop that we had at our yard on Sunday.
I had already attended one session of TTouch a few weeks ago, so decided to hold a days workshop for several of us to attend. In the end, five horses with 7 people attended.
We started with a discussion about the horses that would be involved, including any issues we were trying to address. Then Margaret, the practitioner, told us about TTeam and TTouch and how it may help the horses. She demonstrated the circles and python lifts on a few of the people and talked about the different pressures. Pressure 1 is the amount of pressure it takes to move the skin over your eyelid without pressing on the eye. It was raining fairly heavily so we went to Khan's stable to try some of the TTouches.
Khan is a very tactile pony, who thoroughly enjoyed the attention. There were six of us all practicing the circles on him at the same time. We could see him relaxing down. Margaret also showed us how to do some exploratory TTouches, and we found he was tight through his neck and shoulder.
As it had stopped raining, we took Khan into the arena and set up a labyrinth of poles for him to walk round and over. It was noted that when he halts, his front legs are slightly behind the vertical. We then used the wand (it's not called a whip as that gives the idea of punishment), to get him to place his legs more vertically. After about three attempts he was halting in a much better way.
Harvey, a six year old cob, then came in. He was standing base narrow. Again some work was done to change his stance, by touching his legs with the wand. This helped him to halt as he was more balanced. He seemed a horse that would benefit from a body wrap. This should give the horse a greater appreciation of his own body.
We walked the two horses up to a pole, and stopped them just in front of the pole. Then touched their legs with the wand, and tapped the pole with the wand, asking them to walk forward. Both Khan and Harvey tend to be a little clumsey with poles, but this time they were soon stepping over the pole without touching it.
After lunch, the rain started again, so we went to Polo's stable and did some more TTouch work. Polo is a 20+ year old ex jumping pony. She has arthritis in her pelvis, possibly aggravated by excessive use of draw reins.
We found that the muscles in her neck were very tight, feeling almost like a plank of wood. Polo found it easier for us to work with her hind quarters, so we started there, trying to release those muscles, which will impact the neck muscles. We also learnt some leg circles and tail work. Polo thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and her owner immediately put her name forward for the next workshop.
Tizer arrived and we went into the arena for some ground work. Polo, Tizer and Swift worked together, with Margaret spending time individually on each one. Swift led well and followed the wand in both directions quite easily. He was very careful over the poles and round the labyrinth, so we decided to try something different with him. He was consistently choosing to step over the poles with the right foot first, so we attempted to get him to step over with the left foot. He objected to that, so it took quite some time to succeed. After this, we worked at gently rocking him backwards, then asking him to set out in trot, using his quarters more. I had to alternate the work as Swift started to anticipate after about three attempts.
Unfortunately Meg with Tizer had not been able to attend the whole day. So Margaret talked to her about some TTouches and the leading work, which was similar to the morning exercises everyone else had already done. Polo was also practicing the leading exercises and walking over poles.
In all we had a great day with the horses. Everyone felt they had learnt many different things to do with their horses.
Sorry this was so long, but there was so much to the day. We will certainly be having another workshop to find out more about TTeam.
I've attached a photo of Khan wearing his body wrap and negotiating the labyrinth.
